Jenny Meadows, left, was surprised by Lynsey Sharp's selection but will not appeal against her omission from the Team GB Olympic team. Photograph: Glyn Kirk/AFP

UK Athletics' head coach, Charles van Commenee, has said he will take ultimate responsibility and fall on his sword if his 77-strong team fail to meet expectations at the London Olympics.

The unveiling of the track and field squad, which includes the once-banned sprinter Dwain Chambers and his teenage rival Adam Gemili, was not without controversy.

Selectors gambled by picking Lynsey Sharp for the 800m despite her recording only a B qualifying time this season. The selection of the European silver medallist meant four other athletes who have run faster times in the past two years, including the 2009 world bronze medallist Jenny Meadows, missed out and two places went unfilled under International Association of Athletics Federations rules.

Van Commenee said he was comfortable with his selections and would quit if the sport, which has had £25m of public and Lottery investment over the past four years, failed to deliver in London.

"If athletes don't perform and suffer the consequences, I have to lead by example. I do not understand when people stay in place. It's the same in football, in politics," said Van Commenee, who has been head coach since 2009.

"It's quite simple. If I didn't I would lose my credibility. I couldn't function without credibility. If I hold athletes and coaches accountable every day, how could I possibly work in the next four years if I'm not held accountable?"

UK Athletics has had a longstanding target of eight medals in track and field, including at least one gold, which would represent the best performance since Seoul. Van Commenee admitted that there were lingering injury concerns over one of Team GB's best medal hopes, the triple jumper Phillips Idowu.

Asked if missing the mark would represent failure, he said: "In a way, yes. But I can't imagine that [it would be considered a failure] if you win seven golds or 15 medals without a gold. There is more than one dimension."

The British Olympic Association also confirmed that Chambers and Carl Myerscough, who will compete in the shot put, would be granted an Olympics place. With David Millar also expected to be named on Wednesday in the team that will support Mark Cavendish's attempt to win the cycling road race, all three of the athletes whose Olympic ambitions were rekindled when the BOA was forced by the World Anti-Doping Agency to drop its lifetime ban for serious drug cheats will be present in London.

The BOA's chief executive, Andy Hunt, repeated his insistence they would be welcomed into the team and treated no differently from other athletes.

But of the six hours it took a UK Athletics selection panel to pick a team of 77 athletes to compete at the London Games, a third was taken up with discussion of one hugely controversial decision.

By taking the Scottish 800m runner Sharp to the Olympics after a late burst of form, UK Athletics could take up only one slot when the alternative would have allowed it to select three.

Under IAAF rules, if an athlete who has met only the B-standard qualifying time is selected, it is not possible to also pick those who have an A-standard time.

Meadows, the 2009 world 800m bronze medallist, therefore misses out, as do Marilyn Okoro and Emma Jackson, the only women who have run the A-standard qualifying time this season. Jemma Simpson, second at the trials, also misses out.

One of them, an "emotional" Okoro, immediately took to Twitter to say she was quitting despite having been selected for the 4x400m relay.

But Van Commenee, was typically unapologetic. He said Meadows, who was unable to compete in Helsinki at the European Championships after aggravating an achilles injury on the flight, and the other contenders had only themselves to blame.

"This was difficult basically because not one of these athletes actually took control of their own destiny," he said. "The athletes made it difficult by not doing what they're supposed to do. Once a selection panel has to spend two hours on selection, that's already a bad sign.

"The panel had to decide whether to go for one athlete with B standards, or one, two or three on A standards. After all the deliberations, thoughts and arguments were compared, it was decided that most important is to have the right performance at the right time."

It was Sharp's late surge to a silver medal in Helsinki in a personal best time that appeared to secure her place. "I was shaking and crying when I heard," she said. "I'm so delighted the selectors had faith in my recent form.

"It was always going to be like this – there were five girls and a maximum of three places. Of course I feel for the girls, but that's what sport is like."

Before the squad was announced Meadows, who is plastered over billboards and press adverts promoting the part of the National Lottery in funding British athletes, said she would appeal if she missed out. On Tuesday she performed a U-turn by saying she had decided against it but called the decision "very, very surprising".

The other disappointed athletes have until 1pm on Wednesday to lodge appeals, which would be heard by Friday. But such is the detail of the 17-page selection criteria that Van Commenee does not expect any to succeed. "When there are a lot of successful appeals, the selection panel hasn't done its job correctly," he said. "Our process is solid and it's short."

The big names who will dominate the buildup to the Games – Mo Farah, Dai Greene and Jessica Ennis – were all present and correct. Others, such as the long jumper Greg Rutherford, who is No1 in the world this year, will be hoping that home advantage will reap the ultimate reward. "I'll go in there expecting to do well," Rutherford said. "The crowd can make a huge difference."

But there are ongoing injury concerns about one of Britain's biggest medal hopes. Van Commenee admitted there were "no guarantees" that the world silver medallist Phillips Idowu would be fit. He said he had not received an update from the triple jumper's coach, Aston Moore, since Idowu pulled out of the trials with an injury sustained in Oregon last month.

Idowu, who has a fractured relationship with the Dutch head coach, has told UKA to keep the extent of his injury confidential. Van Commenee said he had been "busy" deciding on the fate of 110 contenders for the team and had not been updated. "We'll know very soon. As far as I know, the latest information was a few days before the trials. I am told he is aiming to compete at Crystal Palace [on 14 July] and that's all I know." Asked whether there was any doubt about him competing in London, he said: "There are no guarantees, they don't exist. How can I possibly be confident about this?"

There is more confidence in the team's ability to hit Van Commenee's longstanding target of eight medals including one gold, which would represent the best performance for 24 years. In the preamble to his announcement, Van Commenee remarked on Britain's rich heritage in the sport but did not dwell on the lean pickings of recent years. He knows how vital golden moments on the track will be to the overall success of the Games. "If we don't deliver, it's an omission," he said.